Benny Jay: Billy `The Kid’ Harris

It’s late at night and I’m walking the dog, when the text message comes in from my old friend, Johnny Reaves, self-taught professor of all things Chicago.

“Billy `the kid’ Harris died,” he writes. “Call me as soon as you can.”

I push redial on my phone.

“Is this for real?” I ask, when he answers.

“I’m afraid so – I just got the word from a buddy….”

“Damn….”

“Heart attack. He was only 58-years-old. Another brother gone too soon….”

In the background, I hear the cackle of a dispatch radio. Johnny works security out by O’Hare Airport. They got him on the graveyard shift, driving the company security car up and down the streets.

He starts in where we left off the last time we were talking about Billy. Seems we’re always talking about Billy, loving basketball the way we do. Billy Harris was the greatest playground basketball player we’d ever seen. And we’d seen a lot – especially Johnny. He’s pretty much seen them all.

“First time I saw Billy was the summer of `67,” Johnny recalls. “He was going into his senior year at Dunbar High School and I was home from the Air Force. It was a pickup game on an outdoor court at Pershing grammar school, over at 31<sup>st</sup> just east of King Drive. He turned the place out. Throwing up shots left and right and talking a mile a minute: `I’m as good as the best and better than the rest.’ `You can’t cover me with a gun.’ He told one guy – `you can’t stick me with a knife.’ Billy could talk some trash.

“He had some of the greatest shoulder fakes I’d ever seen. He shake them shoulders and guys would automatically jump in the air. By the time they hit the ground, Billy had knocked down his shot. The boy could shoot. His jump shot was a thing of beauty. Just years and years of practicing in the projects. When you growing up in the projects all you got is time to shoot.

“I saw him play at Marshall High School – must have been his senior year. This was before they built the new court – still had that old court. They had all those different lines for tennis and volleyball and stuff. A long shot at Marshall is what they call from the double green, which are the lines on other side of the half court. Billy hit a shot from the double green. He got a standing ovation from the Marshall fans. Listen — when you shoot a shot from the double green, you get instant props at Marshall.”

The dispatcher comes in. “Hold on,” Johnny says to me. Then he tells the dispatcher: “I’m at Harwood by Clover.”

He comes back to me without missing a beat. “The Bulls drafted him but they cut him without really giving him a chance. He talked too much — and you know they had this thing about inner-city players who talked too much. Norm Van Lier told him – `just shut up and play.’ But Billy said – `I can’t shut up.’ They basically cut Billy cause he talked too much. It’s a damn shame cause Billy could have been a star. The man was born to play basketball. I guess he was either born too early or born too late.”

I try to sneak a word in – cause, you know, I got something to say — but Johnny’s on a roll. “I wrote a poem about Billy,” he continues. “I got it right here in my pocket.”

He clears his throat, then recites his poem: “Good bye, Billy. You got next in the big gym, my brother. You left a legacy for a lot of players in the game that never knew you but should have. The game missed out on the playground prince who preceded the AAU system when the game was pure. Before the shoes and the agents. When it was just ten on the concrete. Go on and be with the legends and may all your jumpers hit nothing but net. You got next, Billy.”

We’re silent for a moment. “That’s pretty good,” I tell him. “You’re a poet and you don’t know it.”

“Yeah, well, it ain’t Shakespeare, but I wrote it from my heart….”